LIBRAR Y OF CO NGRESS, r 

Shelf ..^ysl...2l.^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



L 



James Abram Garfield 



Ulamrial ^bsercanm 



(^ 



IN 



THE CITY OF WORCESTER 




IN CITY COUNCIL, 

SEPTEMBER 26, 1881. 



UuDEiiKi>, — That a joint committpe he appointed whose (hitj- it 
shall be to solicit a copy of the several speeches delivered at the 
Memorial Service held iu Mechanics Hall at noon this day, the 
same to be published together with such other records of the 
observances of the event as in the opinion of the committee may 
be thouglit desirable. 

The following were constituted a joint committee under tliis 
order ; 

CiiARLKs G. Eked, 

D<tIiRVN'CE S. GODDAIU), 

Aldermen. 

Edward 0. Parkkr, 
George E. Batchelder, 



Kn.^i^^-ppi^'yi-id o^ 




. (yaw-ne 



^./^ ^A4ArD 



IN CITY COUNCIL, 

SEPTEMBER 26, 1881. 



Ordekf:d, — That a joint conimittee be appointed whose (hity it 
shall be to solicit a copj^ of the several speeches delivered at the 
Memorial Service held iu Mechanics Hall at noon this day, the 
same to be published together with such other records of the 
observances of the event as in the opinion of the eonnnittec may 
be thought desirable. 

The following were constituted a joint committee under this 
order ; 

CiiAULKs G. Reed, 

DORKAN-CE S GODDARD, 

Aldermen. 

EmvAKD (J. Parker, 
George E. Batchelder, 
,7amks J. Teirney, 

Ceuncilmeii. 




Iames Abram Garfield 



Jflrmarial dDherrances 



IN 



THE CITY OF WORCESTER 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL. 




Worccsitcr, |tta.^,$achu.octts^ 

MDCCCLXXXl 




^ (xJ^rc (/rJ^^^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACB. 

Death of thk President, 7 

Action of City Council, 15 

Memorial Meeting at Mechanics Hall, 18 

Rev. C. M. Lajison's Address, 19 

Hon. W. W. Rice's Address, 20 

Hon. Geo. F. Hoar's Address, 24 

Hon. a. H. Bullock's Address, 27 

Memorial Meeting at Catholic Institute, 32 

Rev. J. J. McCoy's Poem, 33 

Rev. T. J. Conaty's Oration, 36 

Memorial Obseraances in the Pihlic Schools, . . . . 41 

Superintendent Marble's Addhess, 41 

Facts in Conclusion, , .... 46 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, 

Twentieth Presidetit of the United States. 

Barn in Drange, Dhia, NavEmtEr lath, IBSl, 
EliEd at ElbEran, Neu/ JErsEV, SEptEmtiEr IBth, IBBl, 

m. 43, 



DEATH OF THE PRESH)ENT. 



■POR some weeks it had been widely known to the public, through the 
* eolumns of the press, that, in the fourth month of his newly inaujj;ii rated 
Administration, President Garfield was to leave Washington for the North, 
on Saturday, July 2, to be absent two weeks. His family joiuinjj; him from 
Lonj; Branch, he was to be the guest of Cyrus W. Field, at Irvington-on-the- 
Hudson, until Monday, July 4, at 10 a. m. On that day he was to leave for 
Williamstown, Mass., via Troy, and remain at Williamstown until Thursday, 
on which day he was to depart for St. Albans, Vt., going thence to Bethlehem, 
N. H. ; on his return journey to Washington, visiting Concord, Mass., 
Worcester, and Lincoln, iu which latter place his ancestors lie buried. 

In Worcester, as in otlier communities, preparations for the observance of 
tiie AiMiiversary of American Independence had been completed, when 
suddenly there fell upon the nation an event, the story of which cannot be 
better told than in the words of the successive news dispatches, which were 
the transmissions of a single morning, filling the whole country with terror 
and grief, and carrying, over land and under the sea, the same shock to the 
peoples of both hemispheres. 

FIRST DISPATCH. 

Washington, July 2, 9.30 a. m. President Garfield was shot before leav- 
ing the city on the limited express this morning, for his intended trip North. 
He is believed to be dead. 

SECOND DISPATCH. 

Washington, 9 30 a m. President Garfield was shot at the Baltimore and 
Potomac station. 

THIRD DISPATCH. 

Washington, 9.35 a. m. Col. Corbin has just passed, in the President's 
carriage, with a physician, on his way to the Baltimore and Potomac station. 

FOURTH DISPATCH. 

Wasiiin(.tox, 10 A M. It is reported that President Garfield is dead, but 
the excitement is so intense that it is impossil)le to (Ind out anything definite 
at present. 

Tlic man who shot him has been arrested. 



FIFTH DISPATCH. 

Washington, 10.15 a. m. President Garfield is now lying in a private 
room in the offlcei's' quarters of the Baltimore and Potomac station, and 
Doctors Bliss, Surgeon-General Barnes, and Dr. Purvis (colored) are in 
attendance. 

SIXTH DISPATCH. 

Washington, 10.15 a. m. The shooting was done by a slender man about 
5 feet 7 inches high, who refused to give his name, but is said by persous 
who profess to know, to be one Dooty. 

The prisoner was arrested immediately after the firing by officers in the 
depot. He was first taken to the police head-quarters, and subsequently 
removed to the district jail. 

SEVENTH DISPATCH. 

Washington, 10.20 a. m. The President is now being conveyed to the 
Executive Mansion under a strong escort of metropolitau police. Two com- 
panies of regulars have beeu ordered out from the Washington barracks, to 
preserve quiet, as great excitement exists in the streets The shooting 
took place in the presence of some fifty or sixty ladies. The pistol with 
which the fli'ing was done was of very heavy calibre, better kuowu as a 
"Bull-Dozer." Two shots were fired. Both took efiect. The first wound 
is in the right arm ; the second is just above the right hip, and near the kid- 
ney. The physicians have probed for the second ball unsuccessfully. 

EIGHTH DISPATCH. 
Department State, Washington, D. C, 10.20 a. m.. July 2, 1881. 
James JRussell Lowell, minister, i&c, London: 

The President of the United States was shot this morning by an assassin 
named Chai'les Guiteau. The weapou was a large sized revolver. The Presi- 
dent hadjust reached the Baltimore and Potomac Station at about twenty min- 
utes past nine, and iuteuded, with a portion of his Cabinet, to leave on the limi- 
ted express for New York. I rode in the carriage with him from the Execu- 
tive Mansion, and was walking by his side when he was shot. The assassin 
was immediately arrested, and the Px'esident was conveyed to a private room 
in the station building and surgical aid at once summoned. He has now been 
removed to the Executive Mansion. The surgeons in consultation regard 
his wounds as very serious, though not necessarily fatal. His vigorous 
health gives strong hopes of his recovery. He has not lost consciousness 
for a moment. Inform our ministers in Europe. James G Blaine, 

Secretary of State. 

NINTH DISPATCH. 

Washington, 11.05 a. m. President Gai'field is conscious and does not 
complain of great sutl'criug, and he has just dictated a telegram to his wife. 



9 

It is impossible to say as yet what the result will be, but the surgeons are 
of the opiuiou that the wounds are uot necessarily fatal. The following i.s 
the telegram which has been sent to the President's will- : 

Mks. Gaiuiki.!), Eluekox, Long Bhancii. The President wishes me to say 
to you from him, tliat he has been seriously hurt. IIow seriously he cannot 
yet saj'. He is himself, and hopes you will come to him soon. He sends 
his love to j'ou. A. J. Kockwi.i.l. 

TENTH DISl'ATCH. 

Washington, 11.15 a. m. The name of the assassin, as written by himself, 
is Charles Guiteau. He says he is an attorney at law, from Chicago. 

The earliest oflicial act of Mayor Kelley, immediately following the new-s 
of the assassination, was in the following order, wisely suspending, in 
Worcester, the usual demousti-atious in observance of the Fourth of July : 

PEOCLAMATIOX BY THE MAYOR. 
Mayor's Ofkici:, City of Woijcesticu, Sunday, July 3, 18«1. 
Owing to the critical condition of the President, the Committee having in 
charge the customary public demonstration on the Anniversary of Independ- 
ence, have decided, at my request, to suspend all such demonstration and 
allow the day to be kept as quiet as possible. And I would recommend that 
all places of business be closed during the day, to-morrow, and that the day 
be observed with the deep sorrow and anxiety which pervades the entire 
community. 

F. H. Kki.i.ky, Mayor. 

At the same time it was arranged and announced by the cit\- authorities, 
that, immediately on the event of receiving news of the fatal issue of the 
President's condition, the fire-bells should be tolled for one hour, at half 
minute intervals, and a special meeting of the City Council immediately 
called. 

From this time, through a period of sevent3'-nine days, the bulletins from 
the sick-room took the precedence of all other topics of the time. The morn- 
ing reports of the physicians in attendance upon the President, were sought 
first among news intelligence. On frequent public occasions of gathering, on 
week-day or on the Sabbath, the newspaper bulletin of the hour, with it«- 
varying suggestions of hope or despair, was given to the audiences. TIk' 
features of this unbroken period of anguish were much the same in Worcester 
as in other communities throughout the land. It deserves to be noted that 
the enterprise of our local newspaper press was characterized by numerous 
-instances of generous heed for the public sorrow. At the frequent periods 
of specially deepened anxiety, they sent extra bulletins in advance of publica- 
tion, to be read to the audiences in churches and other public assemblies. 
The first formal action in public assemblage in Worcester, deserves, for this 
reason, but even more from its special attendant features, to be noted in this 
place. 



10 

PROCEEDINGS AT NOTRE DAME CHURCH. 

Ou Snnckiy morning, Jul}' 3d, at Notre Dame Church, the pastor, Rev. 
Father J. B. Primeau, read the newspaper bulletin dispatch of the morning, 
and then said : 

" The French Catholics ofWorcester, whether they have become American 
citizens, or remain English subjects, have received, with the greatest sorrow 
and most visible horror, news of the attempted assassination of the first Amer- 
ican citizen, the President of the United States. One of the most fervent 
prayers of our Church will be said for the recoveiy and salvation of the 
President, and the safety of the Republic. 

Glory to God, it is next to certain that an act of insanity, and not a crime, 
has spread such national commotion." 

After the celebration of High Mass a public meeting was held in St Jean 
Baptiste Hall, and called to order by Mr. J. C. Rocheleau, and Ferd. 
Gagnon, Esq., editor of ie Travailleur, was called to the chair. Mr. Alfred 
Lucier was elected Vice-President, and F. A. Charbonneau, Secretary. The 
Chairman explained, with deep feeling, the object of the meeting, and, on 
motion, the following gentlemen were nominated as Committee on Resolu- 
tions : Ferd. Gagnon, Joseph ]N[archessault, J. C. Rocheleau, Pierre Corri- 
veau, Amede LeMay. 

After a recess of ten minutes, the Chairman presented the following res- 
olutions which were adopted bj' a deep and impressive silence, all persons 
present l)owing their heads as a significance of their approval : 

Resolved, That the members of the Parish of Notre Dame des Canadiens 
de Worcester, have learned with a profound and sensible grief the news of 
the attempt to assassinate the President of the United States ; that as loyal 
citizens, being members of different political parties, they form at this meet- 
ing but one party of men full with emotion in the face of such an event; that 
they have but one voice, one sentiment. They otter their most humble and 
deeply felt condolence to the devoted wife and family of the President, and 
expi-ess fervent hope, and ofler prayers for the recovery of the Chief Magis- 
trate of the Republic. They protest against the information published some- 
where, that the assassin, Guiteau, is a French Canadian, because Guiteau is not 
a Canadian name, and because the assassin was born in the United States, of 
parents from here. That these resolutions be published in the Gazette, with 
request to the other city papers to copy. 

On the same Sunday, the attempted assassination of the President was 
alluded to, to a greater or less extent in nearly every church in the city, and 
in many, the whole service was devoted to its consideration. 

On Monday, July -ith, a Union Prayer Meeting was held in Mechanics Hall 
at noon, an impressive ceremony, with a large attendance, the platform being 
occupied by the clergy and well known citizens. The opening remarks 
were made by Rev. Geo. W. Phillips, who conducted the services. The 
morning special bulletins of the condition of the President were read, both 
at the opening and close of the meeting. Prayer was oflered by Rev. Dr. 
Merriman. Selections of Scripture were read by Rev. Dr. Marshall. Re- 
marks were made by Rev. M. H. Harris, Prof. Charles 0. Thompson, 



11 

Rev. D. 0. Mcars, and United States Senator Hour. The Funeral Marcli, 
by Batiste, was played as an or^an voluntary by C. C. Stearns, and the large 
congregation nnited in singing the hymns "Nearer my God to Thee," 
•'O God, our Help in ages past," and " Oh God of Bethel, by whose hand." 

On Tuesday, September 5, the President was removed from Washington 
to Elberou, on the sea shore at New Jersey ; the journey and its effects 
watched with thrilling anxiety by the nation. 

In common action Avith nearly all the Governors of States, responding to 
the universal sentiment of the people, issued among the first days of Septem- 
ber, there appeared the following 

PROCLAMATION BY GOVERNOR LONG. 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

rOfficial.] 

By his Excellency, John D. Long, Governor of the Commonwealth. 

A PROCLAMATION. 

I hereby appoint Thur-sday, the eighth day of September current, between 
the hours of ten in the forenoon, and twelve noon, as a time for universal 
prayer by the people of the Commonwealth. Turning from the usual pur- 
suit, gathering in the meeting house or at home, let all our hearts go up in 
fervent appeal to Almighty God to spare the President's life, and restore him 
to health. 

Given at the Executive Chamber, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and eighty-one. 

JOHN 1). LONG. 
By his Excellency the Governor. 

Heniiy B. Pii:i;ce, 
Secretary of the Commonioealth . 

God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

On the day thus designated, there were public services held in a number 
of the city churches, these, in most instances, being union meetings of sev- 
eral congregations. Very large assemblies of this character met at Union 
Church, and the Old South. A special service was held at All Saints. At 
Notre Dame there was a special service, with the prayer of the church for 
the President's recovery. 

The courts were adjourned, and business almost generally suspended 
throughout the citj' during the hour named in the Governor's Proclamation. 

At this time the Annual Fair of the New England Agricultural Society was 
in i)rogress in Worcester, and, in accordance with the action of the Executive 
Committee, the oUicers of the Society, with their distinguished guests, Gen. 
Sherman, Hon. Horace Maynard, Gov. Long, U. S. Senator Hoar and others, 
with a large assembh' gathered from the Fair Grounds, came together in the 
President's tent at 1L30, where l)rii'f remarks and a prayer were made by 
Rev. C. M. Lamson. 



12 

One of the impressive proofs of the universal grief at the hopeless condi- 
tion of the President, was seen at the ploughing match, on the hillside north 
of the Fair Grounds, where, at 10.30 a. m., the marshal called the workmen 
and spectators together for prayer. There was an immediate response ; the 
ploughs were left in the furrows, all gathered under the open sky, and with 
reverent attitude listened to and joined in the prayer. All heads were 
uncovered, some knelt, many wept. After the brief service the men resumed 
their work in silence. 

A few more days of steadily deepening anxiety and dread, and the following 
official dispatch was sent, at midnight, from Elberon to Vice President 
Arthur, then at his home in New York City : 



A DISPATCH FROM CABINET OFFICERS. 

Long Branch, N. J., Sept. 19., 11 p. m. 

2b Chester A. Arthur, Vice President of the United States: 

It becomes our painful duty to inform you of the death of President Gar- 
field, and to advise you to take the oath of office as President of the United 
States without delay. If it concurs with your judgment, will be very glad if 
you will come here on the earliest train to-morrow. 

William Wisdom, Secretary of the Treasury. 
W. H. Hunt, Secretary of the Navy. 
Thomas L. James, Postmaster-General. 
Wayne McVeagh, Attorney-General. 
S. J. KiRKwooD, Secretary of Interior. 



At the same midnight hour the bells were tolling in all points of the laud- 
reached by the telegraph, and at the same hour, in New York City, the Vice 
President took the oath of office as President of the United States. 

In Worcester, as in other cities, many citizens, aroused by the tolling 
bells, left their homes to seek the newspaper offices, and read fuller contirma- 
tion of the intelligence, so long awaited with dread. 

Says the Worcester Spy, Sept. 20 : " The news of President Garfield's deatk 
was received at this office at 11 o'clock last night. Word was at once sent 
to the house of Engineer Brophy, and in a few moments the fire alarm bells 
made the sad announcement to the people, who had taken fresh courage from, 
the evening bulletins. Crowds at once gathered in front of the »S/>y bulletin, 
where the simple announcement appeared: 'The President died at 10.35.' 
No additional details were received until after midnight, when they were 
promptly bulletined. The crowds, called from their bed by the solemn 
tolling of the bells, discussed the news quietly, many standing with tears in 
their eyes. The bells tolled until 1 o'clock a. m., after which the people 
quietly dispersed." 



13 

Tho following is the ollicial annoiiiiccment of the onlcr of funeral 
services : 

THE rUESIDENT'S FUNERAL. 

Long Bhanch, X. J., Sept. 20. 

The following: arranirements for funeral services have 1)een ordered by the 
Cabinet, and are given to the press for the information of the public : 

The remains of the late President of the United States will be removed to 
Washington by special train on Wednesday, Sept. 21, leaving Elberon at 10 
A. M., and reaching Washington at 4 v. jr. Detachments from the United 
States Army and from the marines of the Navy will be in attendance on the 
arrival at Washington to perform escort duty. The remains will lie in state 
in the rotunda of the Capitol on Thursday and Friday, and will be guarded 
by deputations from the Executive department and b}- otticers of the Senate 
and House of Kepresentatives. Religious ceremonies will be observed in the 
rotunda at 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon. At 5 o'clock the remains will be 
transferred to the funeral car, and be removed to Cleveland, Ohio, via the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, arriving there on Saturday, at 2 p. m. In Cleveland 
the remains will lie in state until Monday at 2 p. m., and then be interred in 
Lake View Cemetery. No ceremonies are expected in the cities and towns 
along the route of the funeral train, beyond the tolling of bells. 

Detailed arrangements for" final sepulture are committed to the municipal 
authorities of Cleveland, and under the direction of the Executive of the 
Stati' of Ohio. 

(Signed ) James G. Jii.AixE, 

Secretary of State. 

President Arthur, who had previously taken the oath of office at New York, 
was formally inaugurated at Washington, at 12 o'clock, m. on Thursday, Sept. 
22d, and on tlie same day issued the following : 

PROCLAMATION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Whereas, In liis inscrutable wisdom, it has pleased God to remove from us 
the illustrious head of the nation, James A. Garfield, late President of the 
Luited States, and 

Whereas, It is fitting that the deep grief which (ills all hearts, should 
manifest itself with one accord toward the Heail of Infinite Grace, and that 
we should bow before the xVlmighty. and seek from him that consolation in 
our atHiction. and sanctification of our loss which lie is able and willing to 
vouchsafe. 

Now, therefore, in obedience to sacred duty, and in accordance with the 
desire of the people, I, Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States of 
America, do hereby appoint Monday, the 20th day of September, on w^hich 
daj' the remains of our honored President will be consigned to their last rest- 
ing place on earth, to be observed as a day of humiliation and mourning. 

And I earnestly recommend all the people to assemble on that day iu their 
respective places of divine worship, there to render alike their tribute of sor- 
rowful submission to the will of Almighty God, and of reverence and love 
for the memory of our late Chief Magistrate. 



14 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of 
the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the cit}- of Washington, the 22nd day of September, in the year of 
our Lord, 1881, and of the Independence of the United States, the one hun- 
dred and sixth. 

(Signed), CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

By the President. 

James G. Blaixe, 

Secretary of State. 

On the same day Gov. Long issued the following : 
PROCLAMATION BY THE GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

President Garfield is dead. It is announced that his funeral will be on 
Monday next, the twenty-sixth day of September. I therefore ask the peo- 
ple of the Commonwealth to make that a sacred day, and to keep it accord- 
ingly. 

A day of consecration to Almighty God ; of mourning for the great dead ; 
of sympathy with his widow, his children, and his aged mother; yet, also, 
of gratitude for his noble life, and of inspiration springing from his exam- 
ple for the manhood of the future. 

I trust, too, that on the intervening Sabbath, all the churches will commem- 
orate the man and the event. 

Given at the Executive Chamber the twent.y-second day of September, in 
the j'ear of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one. 

JOHN D. LONG. 
On Saturday, Sept. 24:th, there appeared the followidg 

PROCLAMATION BY MAYOR KELLEY. 

Mayor's Office, City of Worcester, Sept. 24, 1881. 

In furtherance of the proclamation of the President of the United States, 
and that of the Governor of Massachusetts, I hereby direct that the public 
schools of the city be dismissed for Monday afternoon next, the time 
appointed for the obsequies of the late lamented President, and I would 
suggest to the teachers to lay aside the ordinary school work of Monday 
forenoon, and devote the time to inculcating some useful lessons from the 
heroic life and character of the dead whom the nation mourn. I would 
advise that all work in the several departments of the city be suspended, and 
that the city offices be closed throughout the entire day. I need not remind 
our citizens of the requests made in the official announcements referred to, — 
they will be respected. 

F. H. Kelley, Mayor. 

The proceedings of a more public nature, that were the share of the citi- 
zens of Worcester in these last tributes of memory and respect, it is the pur- 
pose of the following pages to preserve in this form, in accordance with the 
order of the City Council. 



ACTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL. 



A SPECIAL session of the City Council was held on Tuesday 
evening, September 20th, pursuant to a call from Mayor 
Kelley, to take action on the death of President Garfield. The 
two branches met in special session, when Mayor Kelley for- 
mally announced the object of the meeting, as follows: 

MAYOR KELLEVS REMARKS. 

Gentlemen of the City Council: We assemble to-night 
under circumstances of peculiar sadness, to express, in an appro- 
priate manner, the feelings of sorrow and grief of our citizens 
at the death of James A. Garfield, President of the United 
States, which occurred at Long Branch, N. J., thirty-five min- 
utes past ten o'clock last evening. The people of Worcester, 
in common with the people of the nation, mourn the death of 
the chief magistrate, a magistrate who has become endeared to 
them in no ordinary degree by these anxious weeks of heroic 
endurance of pain and disease. In the full maturity of his 
mind, with opportunity and desire to serve his well beloved 
native land, he has been rudely bereft of that life, which had so 
much in it for him, for his family, and for the country. The 
loss is too overwhelming, and the grief too great and oppres- 
sive for fitting expression in words. We can only bow our 
heads, and wait with heavy hearts for the first force of the 
solemn event to pass. From all civilized lands, and from all 
human bosoms under the broad canopy of heaven, there go to 
his devoted wife and stricken family expressions of sympathy 
and grief such as rarely prevail among men. His life is familiar 
to all his fellow countrymen. The labors and hardships of his 
early youth ; his courageous, laborious and devoted manhood ; 
the work and triumj)h in his great career, and the crowning 



16 

spectacle of patience and fortitude under protracted suffering — 
all these are known in every American home. His pure and 
patriotic life furnishes a model for those who are to come after 
him. He has died untimely and with much good work undone ; 
but he has not lived and died in vain. The world is better for 
his presence in it, and the beneficent influence will last far into 
the future. 

Alderman Marsh offered the following, which were adopted 
on motion of President Shattuck of the Common Council, 
seconded by Councilman O'Gorman : 

RESOLUTIONS. 

The City Couucil of Worcester, in convention assembled, desii'es to place 
upon its records an expression of the grief this community, in common with 
the people of the United States, feels on this, the occasion of the death of 
President Garfield. 

It is meet that we assemble here to-day, in recognition of the fact that this 
event touches very tenderly the hearts of all our people. Therefore be it 

Besolred, That we are grateful for the example of the youth of James 
Abram Garfield ; for his love of country in its hour of peril ; for his wise coun- 
sels and earnest words in behalf of sound legislation in the halls of Congress ; 
and for the promise, so sadly blighted, of a beneficent administration of the 
government during his term of office. 

Besolved, That we recognize his patient endurance, his cheerful spirit, his 
lofty and serene trust during the days of his suftering and anxiety. 

Besolved, That we found in him a loyalty to the sacredness of home, to an 
observance of the holy duties of religion, to a faithful participation in the 
affairs of the state, that makes his example a precious inheritance to the 
nation. 

Besolved, That we bear in mind his affiicted family, recognizing particularly 
the ceaseless vigils of his noble wife, and the tender love of his aged mother. 

Besolved, That we rejoice that his life was spared so long, and that even in 
his helplessness and exhaustion, he has done so much for his country, by 
opening the tide of sympathy fi'om all classes and conditions, thus hushiug 
the bitterness of party and hostility of section, and making us, more than 
ever, one people. 

COUNCILMAN O'GORMAN'S REMARKS. 

Councilman O'Gorman, in seconding the resolutions, said : 

Mr. Mayor, and Gentlemen of the Convention : I had 
hoped that others abler than myself would speak on the resolu- 
tions offered by Alderman Marsh ; but I cannot let the oppor- 



17 

tiinity pass without offering my meed of praise to this great 
and good man. The unity of sentiment evoked by this greatest 
of calamities that could befall the nation at this time, has no 
parallel in our history, unless, perhaps, in the death of the 
lamented Abraham Lincoln. And if a ray of sunshine there is 
in this our great misfortune, it is most touchingly referred to 
in one of the resolutions. It has demonstrated, beyond a doubt, 
the unity of our people. All party lines are obliterated ; social, 
sectional and religious divisions forgotten. On every lip has 
been, and from every heart has come, the prayer that the life of 
our honored President be spared to his countr}'. We all believed 
such was the sentiment of the country, but I doubt if any be- 
lieved it to exist to so great an extent as has been demonstrated 
during the last few weeks. Men of the type of President Gar- 
field die but to live in their good works, and the good example 
bequeathed by them to posterity. May his soul rest in peace. 
Alderman Reed offered the following, which was also adopted : 

Ordered, That His Ilouor the M:i3'or cause the City Hall to be appropri- 
ately draped, the flags to be displayed at half-mast for a period of six days, 
and that the bells of the city be tolled duriuj; the hour set apart for the 
fuueral of the late President. 



THE MEETING AT MECHANICS HALL 



IN response to a spontaneous movement among citizens, a call 
was issued for a public meeting at Mechanics Hall, on Mon- 
day, the day of the President's burial at Cleveland. By the 
courtesy and co-operation of the Executive Committee of the 
Worcester County Musical Festival, then in occupancy of the 
Hall, the audience room was filled at 12 M., its seating 
capacity largely increased by the chorus seats, rising in deep 
banks from the platform. By this means it is believed that 
the hall, the most commodious in central Massachusetts, 
accommodated on this occasion the largest audience ever 
assembled within its walls. The doors were open at 11 
o'clock, and at the hour appointed for the exercises to com- 
mence every seat was occupied. 

The account of the Gazette^ of Tuesday, 27th, says: "The 
great chorus of the Festival was present, and with Mr. G. W. 
Sumner at the organ, led the large congregation in the hymns 
of the occasion. The hall was crowded with people, and hun- 
dreds went away, unable to get even a place on the stair-cases 
within hearing distance of the platform. 

Mayor Kelley presided, and with him upon the platform 
were a large body of well-known citizens, H. M. Smith acting 
as Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements. Among them 
were S. Salisbury, Jr., E. B. Stoddard, L. J. Knowles, Charles 
A. Chase, W. T. Merrifield, P. Emory Aldrich, G. Henry 
Whitcomb, A. B. R. Sprague, Charles E. Stevens, Charles H. 
Doe, J. Evarts Greene, C. M. Miles, Aug. N. Currier, S. R. 
Heywood, Wm. Dickinson, Dr. J. Sargent, P. L. Moen, Nath'l 
Paine, Joseph Mason, Adin Thayer, Calvin Foster, P. C. 
Bacon, T. C. Bates, J. Pickett, A. P. Marble, D. S. Messenger, 
E. A. Goodnow, and Sumner Pratt, besides a large representa- 
tion of the local clergy." 



19 

The exercises opened with an Anthem, by tlie Festival 
Chorus, under direction of Mr. Carl Zerrahn, as follows : 

Cast thy Burden iii)on the Lord ; and He shall sustain thee : 

He never will suHer the righteous to full : 

He is at thy right hand. 

Thy mercy Lord is great : and far above the heavens, 

Let none be made ashamed, that wait upon Thee. 

Prayer was then offered by Rev. J. W. Johnston of Grace 
Church, after which Rev. C. M. Lamson, of Salem St. church, 
read the 

SELECTIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 

The righteous hath hope in his death. The Eternal God is tiiy refuge, and 
underneath are His everhisting arms. 

Let not jour heart be troubled : ye believe in Goil, believe also in me. 

In my Father's house are many mansions : if it was not so I would have 
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you 
unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also. 

After the reading of the Scripture, Rev. Mr. Lamson spoke as 
follows : 

REV. MR. LAMSON'S REMARKS. 

Has there ever been, in the history of this or any other land, 
a sorrow so unanimous as our present grief ? By a real and 
solemn adoption, every state and every household has received 
the President into the sweetness and sanctity of its own home, 
and now weep for him as for the death of a first-born. Every 
business covers its doors with the signs of sorrow, as if it would 
thus protect itself from the rude intrusion of a selfish love of 
gain. By its sincere sympathy the civilized world joins in the 
long procession of mourners, as this day the mortal President is 
borne up the hillside to the tomb. It is a sad and memorable 
spectacle. But God has so made human hearts that sorrow is 
often accompanied by a most reasonable joy. There is satis- 
faction in the truth that the people have a profound adoration 
for the worth of personal justice, purity and charity. In the 
people's agony is seen the soundness of the people's heart. All 



20 

the world, all future political conventions, may now know the 
popular idea of a president. This one was the "man of the 
people." 

In the last three months through sympathy with him in his 
suffering, there has been a new and popular election. The 
men, the women, even the children, have chosen Garfield as a 
leader. They saw no stain on the borders of his garments — 
every wisdom was in his brain, and every virtue in his heart. 
He was the sage, the hero, the saint. There let him live for 
generations, clothed in white, a leader and commander of the 
people. 

I fear, however, that our sorrow may vanish as an amiable 
sympathy, a luxury of grief, before it changes to wisdom and 
duty in our hearts. It is a shallow grief that ceases when it has 
been once felt and told, that grieves for the loss of the good 
while it retreats from the pursuit of the good. While your 
hearts are tender from the memory of this " man of sorrow," I 
urge you to come with him near to "the Man of Sorrow," in 
whom grief never went to waste, and in whose eyes the 
Christian republic may see the light of men. Solemn duties 
approach our sacred grief, and will not be silent. When Gar- 
field went to God from Elberon by the sea, he left behind this 
command: "Whether your time calls you to live or die, do 
both like a prince." 

The entire audience then joined in singing two verses of the 
hymn commencing, 

Jesus, Lover of my soul, 
Let me to Thy bosom fly ; 

Hon. W. W. Rice, member of Congress from this district, 
was next introduced, and spoke as follows : 

HON. W. W. RICE^S ADDRESS. 

These days are indeed full of sad but rich experience. 
A week has not passed since the hush of midnight was 
broken by the tolling of bells, announcing that the prayers 
of the nation were not to be granted, but that its best be- 



21 

loved lay dead. On Friday, his obsequies were fittingly 
observed in the National Capitol, and to-day, in response to 
the first ofiicial act of the new President, we meet in token of 
our submission to the will of Almighty God, with hearts filled 
with reverence and love for our late President, wJiile we commit 
dust to dust, ashes to ashes, burying our dead out of our sight. 

Universal grief pervades the people, for the greatness of 
their loss can not be estimated. Innumerable eyes are wet with 
•tears, for the noble widow and orphaned children are standing 
by the open grave of husband and father : but, if we properly 
improve this hour of solemn reflection, we may find gladness in 
our grief, and consolation, triumph even, in our affliction. 

Our President accomplished more by his sickness and death, 
than, in human probability, he could have done by life. Let 
us remember this, and be glad in the midst of our sorrow. 
Most significant were the palms, emblems of victory, which 
were bent over his bier, beneath the dome of the Capitol, and 
which lay upon it, as they bore him beyond the mountains, for 
the nation buries to-day a triumphant chief, a conquering hero, 
in the beautiful citj' by the lake. 

His personal triumph is such as has fallen to the lot of V)ut 
few men. Elevated at a comparatively early age to the Presi- 
dency, his future was hopeful rather than assured. Tn the 
ordinary course, long years of toil with doubtful result lay 
before him. All now is changed — there is no longer doubt. 
He has won the crown. No power can displace it. His terri- 
ble sufferings, not half appreciated until since his death, were 
in the sight of the whole world, and he spoke no unmanly 
word, did no unworthy act. He was tried as by fire, and 
found of purest metal. Of him the verdict of the civilized 
world has been rendered, and it is irreversible : " This was 
indeed a man.'" 

But Garfield's personal triumph, great as it is, is not the 
greatest which he won, or that in which his noble nature would 
most rejoice. The spirit of our free institutions fought in him 
and prevailed. Born in a cabin, reared in poverty, he died the 
peer of any man on earth. As a scholar, — almost self-educated, 
— as a statesman, learning his lessons in the hard school of daily 



22 

practice, he may be compared without disadvantage even with 
Gladstone, the highest fruit of English culture and training ; 
while his death-bed furnished evidences of a faithfulness, 
loyalty and courtesy for which we may seek in vain in the 
annals that recount the virtues of a Bayard, or a Sj'dney. We 
cannot doubt, since Garfield has died, the capacity of our 
institutions to develop from humblest origin the scholar, states- 
man, gentleman, and Christian ; at least, in an equal degree, 
with those which rest upon distinctions in birth and wealth. 

Garfield was of the Puritan faith and type. He held fast to 
the old doctrines — worshipped through life in the little church 
on Vermont Avenue, with those whose faith he had accepted in 
early youth. His obsequies were conducted in the presence of 
President and ex-Presidents, of the representatives of this 
great people and of kings and emperors, by the plain, earnest 
clergymen of the Christian sect of which, through all mutations 
of fortune, he had been a constant and consistent communicant. 
Ah, that old Piu-itan spirit, criticise it as we may, it has 
wrestled in old times with kings, and has prevailed ; it has 
planted the institutions of this great nation, and guarded their 
infant growth ; it has crushed, sometimes with relentless hand, 
what would work them ill, and now comes again to the front, 
manifests itself, vindicates its strength, its right to rule, 
triumphs again in the character, the life and the death of Garfield. 

Garfield was a patriot ; he fought for the union and national- 
ity of his countr}'. In his public life since the war, he has 
sought to disarm sectional bitterness, and to re-establish har- 
mony and friendl}^ co-operation in national affairs. He has some- 
times been criticised as willing to yield too much to the preju- 
dices and wishes of southern representatives. He never sacrificed 
essentials, but in the generosity of his nature he accepted the 
friendship of political opponents, and sought by personal inter- 
course to inspire them with the same love of a united and 
harmonious country which filled his own heart. Although he 
was the foremost champion of northern principles, and their 
most eloquent advocate in the national councils, yet the mag- 
nanimity of his character was so well understood at the South, 
that his Administration was anticipated by that section hope- 



23 

fully, as an era of restoration and prosperity. These friendly 
sentiments have been stimulated into reverence, almost worship, 
by the noble bearing of the President during his unparalleled 
sufferings. Southern cities, as well as northern are draped in 
mourning, and their citizens are joining with us in the funeral 
exercises of to-day. Garfield is felt to be the property of the 
whole nation. Sections, races, parties, meet in a community of 
sorrow. Of course the old issues are not extinct, differences 
still exist ; in the nature of things this is not only inevitable 
but for the best ; but only good can come from the fact that for 
one da}^ all hearts are united in a complete sympathy and love. 
The unification of the Republic has been promoted by the 
death of Garfield as we could scarcely hope it would have been 
by his life. 

I have thus briefly alluded to some of the considerations 
from which we may take comfort in this day of mourning. 
The time allotted will permit no more. 

The life whose loss we mourn has accomplished its great 
work. We could have spared any other better, and yet the 
nation scarcely feels the change. A simple ceremony in a 
private house in New York took place almost during the tolling 
of the bells by which the death of the President was announced. 
There was no change of rulers. One whom the rulers had 
chosen to represent them had passed away, and another taken 
his place. A great man had died, but the government by the 
people and for the people, had not felt a wound. 

At the conclusion of Mr. Rice's address Rev. Mr. Lamsou 
gave out another hymn, which he said was sung in this hall, 
sixteen years ago, at a similar meeting after the death of Pres- 
ident Lincoln. The audience joined in singing the hymn, 
commencing — 

Servant of God, well done ; 
Kest from tliy loved employ — 

Mayor Kelley announced as the next speaker, Hon. George 
F. Hoar, United States Senator from Massachusetts. 



24 



HON. GEO. F. HOAR^S ADDRESS. 

I suppose, at this single hour, there is deeper grief over 
the civilized world than at any other single hour in its 
history. Heroes, and statesmen, and monarchs, and ora- 
tors, and warriors, and great benefactors of the race, have died 
and been buried. There have been men like William the 
Silent and his kinsmen of England, and men like Lincoln, 
whose death generations unborn when they died, will lament 
with a sense as of personal bereavement. But in the past 
the knowledge of great events and great characters made its 
way slowly to the minds of men. The press and the telegraph 
have this summer assembled all Christendom, morning and 
evening, at the door of one sick chamber. 

The gentle and wise Lincoln had to overcome the hatred 
and bitterness of a great civil war. It was the fortune of 
President Garfield, as it was never the fortune of any other 
man, that his whole life has been unrolled as a scroll to be 
read of all men. The recent election had made us all 
familiar with that story of the childhood in the log cabin ; of 
the boyhood on the canal boat ; of the precious school time ; 
of the college days at the feet of our saintly Hopkins ; of the 
school teacher ; of the marriage to the bright and beautiful 
schoolmate ; of the Christian preacher ; of the soldier, saving the 
army at Chickamauga ; of the statesman, leading in great debates 
in congress and on the hustings; of the orator, persuading the 
conscience and the judgment of Ohio, and through her saving 
the nation's honor and credit in the great strife for public hon- 
esty ; of the judge determining the great issue of the title to the 
Presidency ; of the loved and trusted popular leader, to whom 
was offered the choice of three great offices — Representative, 
Senator, and President — at once. We know it all by heart, as 
we know the achievements of the brief and brilliant adminis- 
tration of the presidential office, and the heroic patience and 
cheer of that long dying struggle, when every sigh of agony 
was uttered in a telephone at which all mankind were listening. 
No wonder the heart burst at last. While it was throbbing and 
pulsing with fever and pain, it furnished the courage which 
held up for seventy-nine days the sinking hopes of the world. 



26 

This mau touched the common life of humanity, touched its 
lowliness, touched its greatness, at so many points. His root8 
were in New England Puritanism, were in the yeomanry of 
Worcester and Middlesex. He grew up to manhood in Ohio. 
The South had learned to know him. Her soldiers had met 
him in battle. When he died she was making ready to clasp 
the hand he was holding out to her returning loyalty. The 
child in the log cabin knows all about the childhood so like his 
own. Scholarship mourns the scholar who was struck down 
when he was hastening to lay his untarnished laurels at the feet 
of his college. Every mother's heart in America stirred within 
her when the first act of the new president was to pay homage 
to his own mother. The soldiers and sailors of England, the 
veterans of Trafalgar and Waterloo, join his own comrades in 
mourning for a hero whom they deemed worthy to be ranked 
with the heroes who held out the live-long day with Wellington, 
or who obeyed Nelson's immortal signal.* The laborer misses a 
brother who has known all the bitterness of poverty and the 
sweetness of bread earned by the sweat of the brow. The 
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, sovereign 
of Cyprus and Malta, and Gibraltar, and Canada, and Australia, 
knew her peer, when she laid her wreath, last Friday, on the 
coffin of a kiuff. The last we heard of him in health he was 
playing like a boy with his boy. As our friend said in the 
pulpit yesterday, the giants of mankind when they saw him 
knew the birth mark of their race and bowed their heads. 
The American people have anointed him as the representative 
of their own sovereignty. Washington and Lincoln, even now, 
are coming forward to greet him, and welcome him to a seat 
beside their. own. 

I said there is deeper grief at this hour over the civilized 
world than at any other single hour in history. It seems to 
me that the death of President Garfield is the greatest single 



* " The veteran soldiers and sailors here, including a few survivors of 
Trafalgar and Waterloo, earnestly solicit the American minister to convey 
to Mrs. Garfleld their deep and eflruest sympathy, and their regret lor the 
good and galhmt soldier she has lost." — Col. Poulett Cameron's Dispatch from 
Cheltenham. 



26 

calamity this country ever suffered. I have no doubt there were 
hundreds of thousands of men who would gladly have bought 
his life with their own. But we shall dishonor our dead hero 
if, even while his grave is open, we allow ourselves to utter a 
cry of despair. We would not, if we could, blot out of our 
history our national sorrows. It is true of all nations, even 
more than of men, that " whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, 
and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." Our republic 
was planted in sorrow. One-half of the Pilgrims died at 
Plymouth the first winter, and yet not one of the original 
colony went back to England. Is there any man now who 
would they had not died, or wishes they had found summer, 
and plenty, and ease, and life and length of d?ijs on the coast 
of Massachusetts ? Could we celebrate Yorktown with the 
same lofty triumph without the memories of Valley Forge and 
the death of Hale and Warren ? I think even the widow who 
goes mourning all her days, will hardly wish now that our 
regiments had come home from the war with full ranks. 

God has taken from us our beloved : but think what has 
been bought with this precious life. Fifty millions of people, 
of many races, of many climes — the workman, the farmer, the 
slave just made free — met together to choose the man whom 
they would call to the primacy among mankind. God took 
him in his first hour of triumph, and stretched him for seventy- 
nine days upon a rack. He turned in upon that sick chamber 
a blazing light, that all mankind might look in upon that cruel 
assay, and see what manner of man and what manner of woman 
Freedom calls to her high places. He revealed there courage, 
constancy, cheerfulness, woman's love, faith in God, submission 
to his will. Into what years of Europe, into what cycles of 
Cathay were ever crowded so much of hope and cheer for 
humanity as into the tragedy of Elberon ? Your prayers were 
not answered ; the bitter cup has not passed from you ; but so 
long as human hearts endure, humanity will be strengthened 
and comforted because you have drank it. 

The closing address was made by Hon. Alexander H. Bullock, 
Ex-Governor of the Commonwealth. 



27 
HON. A. H. BULLOCK'S ADDRESS. 

Mr. Mayor and Fellom^ Cftizens: I huve no words, I 
have no capacity for words, fitted to this occasion of dis- 
tress and S3'mpathy. The pall which hung suspended in 
mid-heaven well nigh three months, has at length drop- 
ped and thrown its shadow over all. Never before, for a 
similar period of time, have the sensibilities of fifty millions of 
people, having in accord with them the hearts of all civilized 
countries, been so stirred each morning and evening by alter- 
nations of hope and despair, — l)y one common, universal emo- 
tion of sympathy for a national victim suffering with a heroism 
patient and sublime ; by daily bulletins of scenes of domestic 
devotion and tenderness of rarest sweetness ; by an all-pervading 
anxiety, which found then its only relief in a nation's prayers, 
which reaches now its natural termination when the sense of 
anxiety is supplanted by the sense of desolation. Such has been 
our intensified consciousness and experience for a period of 
three months. The drama is over. The strain which this pro- 
longed and anxious suspense has laid upon our emotional nature, 
has given way to the last tidings and to the last grief. 

The President has passed from the scene of daily bulletins, 
and henceforth he is at rest. The memory of his life and char- 
acter will be embalmed in our hearts by the memory of his 
sufferings and death. Never before, in the annals of the race, 
on so large a field of observation, have a whole people been 
brought so closely and tenderly around the death bed of their 
ruler. From the east and west, from the north and south, from 
the ever memorable second of July to the memorable nineteenth 
of September, every American was brought by the electric 
cords into an intimate acquaintance with the President ; an 
acquaintance which has been enriched, endeared and sanctified 
by the pathos of each succeeding day. He was struck down at 
the moment of starting on his first official excursion, designed 
that he might become better acquainted with the people of his 
care in New England ; but they know him far better now than 
would have been possible from his passing through their vil- 
lages, even with all his magnetic pov\'er in life. And what a 



, 28 

scene for acquaintance that has been, which we have all, as it 
were, witnessed I His submission to the first shock, without 
repining ; his serene acceptance of the slight hope which was 
held out to him for living ; his calmness and fortitude through 
these eighty days, alternating with light and darkness; his 
thoughtfulness and inquiry for the public service amid the 
weariness and depression of his sinking condition; his affection- 
ate intercourse from the couch of languishing with his family, 
his kindred, and his friends ; his resolute determination to live 
for his country, if it might be possible, but readiness to depart 
if such were the divine will ; his almost triumphant gazing upon 
the sea, "the emblem of eternity, the throne of the invisible," 
with which his spirit fell into sweet and solemn harmony ; his 
last evening upon earth, when in the presence of those most 
dear to him, and of the kindly refrain of the ocean, and of the 
constellations shining over him, his soul ascended above the 
constellations, attuned to the apostrophe of the pious Doddridge : 

" Ye stars are but the shiniug dust of my divine abode. 
Tlie pavemeut of the lieaveuly court where I shall reign with God." 

Ah, my friends, these scenes have made up a treasury for 
the memory, for the instruction, for the frequently recurring 
sympathies and affections of the American people for many 
years to come. And so long as they shall continue to lament 
the blow which cut him down at the very opening of a brilliant 
national career, their affections and susceptibilities will group 
themselves around these scenes of mourning all the more 
tenderly because of the personal virtues which diffuse such 
fragrance over his untimely end. 

But in this hour of our grief and depression let us take 
heart that, while the Lord removes the workman, He will carry 
on the work. As the late President himself observed, when, 
sixteen years ago, his martyr predecessor was in the same man- 
ner taken from us, it becomes us to remember that God reigns 
and the nation lives. Kings and Presidents die, but the state 
is immortal. Some of you have gazed at the window in the 
vast palace at Versailles, where, in former days, when the 
French monarchy lived, the state herald stepped out at the 



29 

moment of the death of a King, proclaiming, — "the King is 
dead, hail to the King." It was the giving form and expres- 
sion to the impressive truth that, while rulers are mortal the 
nation is perpetual, under tlie protection of the Most High. 
I was impressed by a remark which was made by the late Lord 
Beaconsfield in the House of Commons, upon the occasion of 
the death of President Lincoln. He said that he had noticed 
that assassination had seldom affected the current of history. 
The remark is largely true, and is fraught with historical 
encouragement. The Lord in his wisdom permits the assassin 
to play his foul part — but it stops with one life, and he is not 
permitted to obstruct the august purposes of Providence in 
the affairs of the world. Gerard inflicted what seemed a 
mortal blow upon the hopes of the Low Counties in the assas- 
sination of William the Silent: but there was still left a Ruler 
above, and the people of those stricken states continued on in 
their struggle till they conquered independence of the Spanish 
King and deliverance from the Spanish inquisition. Ravaillac 
gave a terrible shock to the spirit of the French people b}^ the 
murder of Henry the Fourth ; but the irresistible wheels of 
Providence continued to revolve propitiously over progressive 
and beautiful France. And, at a most critical stage of our own 
history, Booth startled the human race from its confidence by 
the death of Lincoln ; but the American people took affairs 
into their own hands, and re-constructed and re-consolidated 
what, by common consent, is now the foremost nation of the 
world. This same instruction is repeated by the present 
calamity. It is among the inscrutable and mysterious dealings 
of Divine Providence that our chief magistrate, so noble by 
the temper of his mind and heart, so invested with promise to 
this country by his broad experience and attainments, so certain 
to become an exemplar for any future age by his purity of char- 
acter, should have been allowed to fall by the hand of the 
assassin. But the mystery goes no farther ; and it has been 
assured to us by the manifestations of God in history that the 
consequences of the crime cannot reach the life of the govern- 
ment. No — let us not be afraid of any disturbance of the 
American government, which is allied to the throne of Heaven 



30 

and to the hearts of fifty millions who trust in the God of their 
fathers. 

And, in this moment of our bereavement, it is important that 
we take one thought more into our reflections. It is im- 
portant that we should guard the fountains of the moral sense 
of the nation, which is the only source of the public security. 
When the disorganizer is a conspicuous factor of the social 
problem, let the Christian conservator take heed of his own 
responsibility. Every virtuous magistrate, every minister of 
our holy religion, every public or private teacher, every man 
and woman of sobriety of thought — let him, let her, in every 
word of the mouth, in every lesson to the young, be set firm 
against the socialistic doctrine, — that doctrine of shame and 
horror, — that the assassin may be a legitimate instrument of 
reform. To the assassin, if to any one in the whole universe 
of God, should be appropriated the Latin phrase of the law of 
nations — hostis humani generis — the enemy of the human race. 
Americans, who instill the opinion that some particular national 
ruler may pass rightfully under the stroke of the assassin, give 
that support to this enemy of mankind which may commend, 
nay, which has already commended, our poisoned chalice to our 
own lips. The sovereign of the great empire in the east, — the 
only crowned head in all Europe who was our true and stead- 
fast friend through every crisis of our late civil war, — had 
scarcely been struck down by a band of assassins, and voices 
of approval uttered in the free speech of this country had 
scarcely died away from the lips of many persons, native and 
foreign-born alike, when the dangerous lesson fell with horrible 
application at our own door. There can be no tribunal in all 
the earth which may establish a boundary between justifiable 
and unjustifiable assassination ; and whenever, or wherever, 
in Europe or in the United States, the assassin is about to pro- 
ceed to his work, he himself alone becomes the judge of his jus- 
tification. If, in our time, there be any doctrine which above 
every other is abhorrent to Christian sentiment, and is loaded 
with peril to social order, it is this. Let the American people, 
in the interests of religion and humanity, for their own salva- 
tion and security, visit upon every such or kindred instruction 



31 

their indignation and condemnation. It is fit and proper that 
we inscribe this lesson upon our liearts as we bend in reverence 
and humiliation before the inscrutable dispensation which has 
visited upon our country one of the signal horrors of the age. 
We cannot supplicate the protection and blessing of Him who 
holds in his control the destinies of this nation, unless we nerve 
ourselves to the duties which He has imposed upon us as free 
agents of an organized Christian government. 

The meeting closed with the Benediction, by Rev. W. R. 
Huntington, D. D., of All Saints' church, after the singing of 
the following stanza: 

Nearer, my God, to Thee, 

Nearer to Thet> : 
E'en thougii it be a cross 

That niiseth nie. 
Still all ray soug shall be. 

Nearer, my God, to Thee, 

Nearer to Thee. 

The meeting was a most impressive one, and the only regret 
was that the hall could not accommodate all who desired to 
attend. 



AT THE CATHOLIC INSTITUTE. 



ONE of the most impressive features of the observance of 
Monday was the gathering at the Catholic Institute on 
Temple Street. Of this event, the Daily Times of September 
27th, preserves the following account : 

During the nation's affliction, from the firing of the 
cowardly bullet until the present, the reverend Pastor of 
St. John's Church has permitted no appropriate occasion to 
pass without giving the people of his parish an opportu- 
nity to express their sense of sorrow at the national bereave- 
ment. But it was not until yesterday that their sympathy was 
expressed by means of a series of public exercises, when the 
Institute Hall and the grounds about it, were decorated, with 
much taste, in mourning emblems. The archway over the 
entrance of the grounds was wreathed in black, and on either 
side of the cross, over the center of the arch, was a picture of 
the lamented President. From the castellated turrets of the 
building waved the American and Irish flags at half-mast. The 
park in front of the Catholic Institute presented an animated 
and picturesque view, with the young shade trees and the beau- 
tiful plots of plants, surrounded by thousands of interested 
listeners, seated on the settees which Father Griffin, in his 
thoughtfulness, had placed in the yard to accommodate those 
persons who might wish to take part in the memorial exercises. 
Besides the park, the sidewalk and a good portion of Fenwick 
Hall were thronged. 

A number of representative citizens were in attendance, nota- 
bly George Crompton, Esq., and family, also Major M. J. 
McCafferty and family, and Tobias Boland, Esq. The Revs. 
Robert Walsh, T. J. Conaty, J. J. McCoy, E. D. Casey, P. H. 
Galleu and Rev. Thomas Griffin entered the vestibule of tlie 



33 

Catholic Institute at 2 o'clock. The Father iSIatthew Baud, 
which had cousiderately volunteered its services, immediately 
played a memorial dirge, the bell of St. John's Church tolling 
meanwhile. The Rev. Thomas Griffin addressed the gathering 
from the entrance to the Hall. Father Griffin made a feeling 
allusion to the occasion which had brought them together, pay- 
ing a glowing tribute to the worth and character of the late 
President, and drawing a beautiful picture of the patriotism and 
love which the terrible -blow of the assassin had evoked from 
the hearts of the people, uniting all, irrespective of creed, race 
or party, in sorrow for the loss which the nation had sustained, 
but also in determination to maintain and sustain the institu- 
tions which the President so loved. The reverend gentleman's 
remarks were heartily received, after which there was another 
piece by the band, and then the members of the several choirs 
that were present, under the direction of Mr. John F. Murray, 
sang an anthem dedicated to the lamented President. 

Father Griffin then introduced the poet of the occasion, the 
Rev. J.- J. McCoy, whose beautiful poem is here given in full. 

OUR MARTYR. 



Stroug, with the swiug of gkid reaper, 

Jo5'ous, he worked 'mid the coru, 
Feeding the land with his labor, 

Gathering us gold in the morn. 
Gold of high purpose and effort 

Gathered at morn of his rule — 
But Oh ! ere yet half done the harvest, 

Dead he lies, struck bv a fool. 



Oh ! but the pit}- ! sad pity I 

He whom we loved as the true, 
As the good, and the strong, strong helper, 

He who would old hopes renew. 
He is dead by tlic sad sea, moaning 

Its dirge on the Elberon strand ; 
Dead on the heart of the nation. 

Dead on each heart in the land. 



34 



Dead to our life's mad rushing; ^ 

Dead to its strife aud its hates ; 
Its scramble for place aud for pillage, 

The lust which the laud desecrates. 
His haud was e'er raised 'gaiust each spoiler; 

His voice laid their wickeduess bare ; 
He tore down from high place coi'ruption, 

And sought to put honesty there. 



His God aud his country, his honor — 

These three made his shibboleth grand. 
And no deed of his, writ in history, 

This glory will wrest from his hand. 
This day there is 'round him new glory ; 

The halo that circles his brow 
Is the white light of martyrdom holy, 

And we have our two martyrs now. 



Our Washington freed us from Britain, 

Our Lincoln struck gyves from the slave, 
And Garfield has saved us from spoilsmen, 

And given his life thus to save; 
For the Moloch of wrong sought vengeance, 

Then innocence only could please ; 
Our dearest and best must be victim, 

The blood-god's foul wrath to appease. 



Yet God notes the fall of the sparrow, 

And brings out our glory from pain, 
He chastisement gives where he loveth. 

He will not let sorrow be vain. 
Nor in vain is this martyr blood, shedding 

Its sign on our door posts to-day : 
Tor the angel who punishes nations 

Will see it, and pass on his way. 



And Ave rise up a purified nation. 

Corruption's foul tide shall be stayed. 

Our laws be administered cleanl}-. 
As purposed the fathers who made ; 



35 

And as he who now sleepeth iutcndeil, 
And was leading his people to see, 

But Moses-likc, dies ere the Promise 
Is verilied i)roi)hecy. 



From his niartli there shall be no divergence, 

Columbia kueels low where he lies, 
And in hand taking up his red heart-drops, 

And holding them high to the skies, 
Swears by the blood of her martyr, 

To carry his principles through ; 
Through to the end of their purpose, 

Through for the good they will do. 



There are few men so happy in dying — 

Could it be, it were 1)etter than life. 
For see now the Union eflected, 

Mark now the stilling of strife ; 
To-day, North and South have no discord. 

There is now but one Country we know 
One brotherhood now in lamenting, 

One harmony now in our woe. 



'T is a beautiful, glorious finish. 

For a life that did good with each breath,. 
To be now reconciling so sweetly ; — 

Our Union revives in his death. 
Exult too, we may in the knowledge, 

That country rests not on one man, 
But goes on as destiny bids her, 

The tirst in humanity's van. 



Goes on with the blaze beating round her ; 

The blaze of the scofl'ers who hate. 
And would fain see her beauty disfigured. 

Would fain see her power prostrate. 
But citizen love, truth and substance, 

Under God, keep her banners unfurled. 
And Freedom, her broad native bed-rock. 

Rests deep in the heart of the world. 



'36 



Let us be glad theu, not mournful ; 

The man, not the nation is dead. 
His name, now,;is national heritage 

And with glory of country is wed. 
'T is a sad cry, this cry of the widow ! 

But cross aud crown is an old, old tale. 
The man went to death for the people 

Aud lier's is a Maccabee's wail. 



Turn, then, our hearts into temples, 

Make niches' for those we revere, 
Write high up their names on the diptychs, 

And hallow their memories here. 
And high where the light falls fullest. 

Close by the mightiest name 
Cut deep for the wear of the ages, 

Garfield, with martyr's fame. 

After another anthem was sung by the choir, the Rev. T. J. 
Conaty delivered a masterly address in memory of the dead 
soldier-statesman. His hearers were visibly affected by the 
touching tributes that he paid the late President. The follow- 
ing is the oration, as given by the Daily Times : 

ORATION OF REV. T. J. CONATY. 

This is a day of mourning ; this is a day of sadness ; over 
every home in this land the shadow of grief is passing. Near 
every fireside a grim spectre stands. Every true man feels 
•that the grief of the nation to-day is the grief of his own heart. 
From tower and steeple the bells toll in plaintive tone, summon- 
ing the people to unite and mingle their tributes of love and 
sympathy, and offer it in grateful remembrance to the Chief 
Magistrate, who, in the hour of his duty and the heyday of his 
success, was stricken down by the cowardly hand of a vile assas- 
sin. Eighty days have passed since that sad event. Every 
pulsation of the martyr's heart was watched with keenest anx- 
iety. Fluttering between fear and hope, the whole people, all 
classes, all creeds, all parties, have prostrated themselves before 
a common God, supplicating him to stay the hand of death. 



37 

But a wise Providence had other decrees. The assassin has 
succeeded, and death has chiinied his victim for his own. The 
last bulletin has been issued. The last pulsation has been re- 
corded. The strong hands are folded across his manly breast, 
and in his western home devoted friends are placing him at this 
moment in his last resting-place. The bells of his country are 
tolling his requiem, and the autumn breezes as they speed 
westward are carrying to his grave the plaintive love of a united 
people as their tribute to his worth. 

This is a day of sadness ; this is a day of mourning; this is 
a moment of grief. Better fitting is silence in the presence of 
the majesty of death. But he, who has succeeded to the mag- 
istracy of the nation, has ordered that this day be set apart, not 
for silent mourning, but for the commemoration of the life and 
services of the great departed. Obedient to this, we dare in- 
trude with words of ours upon the sanctity of the tomb, to place 
before the people some of the deeds of him whose untimely 
death we mourn. 

It is not my intention to enter into all the details of the life 
of President Garfield, but onh* to trace his career hastily, that 
we make ourselves familiar with it in order the better to un- 
derstand its true worth. A few months ago the country hailed 
with glad acclaim his accession to the presidential chair. From 
his chair of state the new President could look across fifty years 
of life to a little log cabin in the woods of Ohio, where his ear- 
liest remembrance told him of a widowed mother with four 
helpless children, struggling against all the diificulties of pov- 
erty, with nothing to depend upon but God, the little work she 
could do, and the small pittance which the labor of her oldest 
boy brought her. 

The speaker then hastily sketched the leading events of his 
life, his poverty and struggles for education, his academy, col- 
lege, army and legislative life, pointing out his success in every 
undertaking, and quoting largely from the army and congres- 
sional records as to his recognized rank among the bravest and 
ablest of his day. " The best informed man in public life," said 
Mr. Chase. Elected President, his ambition was satisfied. He 
was the chief magistrate of its people, the country was in 



38 

prosperity, a united brotherhood rejoiced in a common country, 
and under the sweetest of auspices the new administration was 
launched. The bark sped on its way amid the rejoicings of 
the people, but a rude shock came on that July morning, when 
the wires told us that President Garfield was assassinated. A 
vile scoundrel, laboring under imaginary grievances, struck 
down the President in his hour of duty ; and when he fell the 
nations felt the blow. "And 3^ou, and I, and all of us," felt a 
thrill of horror at the dastardly deed, for we recognized in him 
who fell, not the man Garfield, so much as the chief magistrate 
of the nation. The speaker then proceeded to draw some 
practical lessons from the life of Garfield. He was a type of 
the best product of American free institutions. His most 
prominent characteristic was his persistency of purpose which 
recognized no obstacle too great to be overcome. Setting out 
in early life to win an honorable position at the hands of his 
countrymen, his energy never tired in devising means to reach 
that end. Labor, that brought with it ever so small a pittance, 
became sweet in sight of the education which it enabled him 
to obtain. How success rewarded the patient toiler in his 
persistency, is best seen in the honors which his country heaped 
upon him, not the least of which is the tribute of respect which 
a united people finally places on his newly made grave. An- 
other characteristic was his faith in the Republic. His was a 
faith that this government depended not upon any one man, 
but on the people ; that it needed not a Ca?sar, nor a Cromwell 
to sustain it, for its foundations were deeply sunk in the hearts 
of free men, and its destinies were guided, under God, by the 
suffrages of free men. An incident in his life exemplifies this 
faith. Civil war had distracted the land ; brother had met 
brother upon many bloodj- fields of battle ; dissension brooded 
over the land ; a giant form had arisen to guide the distracted 
country ; a second Washington stood at the helm, and Abraham 
Lincoln saw peace arising from the ashes of strife in obedience 
to his master mind. But the embers of discontent seemed 
only smouldering, and a cruel heart was fired with hate and 
directed the hand that struck down the saviour of his country 
in the moment of his triumph. The message went to the 



39 

country that Lincoln was assassinated ; and men, maddened by 
excitement, gathered in the public places to give vent to their 
grief and indignation. A mob surged through the streets of 
New York eagerly seeking the latest telegram from Washing- 
ton. Violence was threatened : great and good men attempted 
to quiet the multitude, but it seemed of no avail, when a sliarp 
piercing voice was heard : " Fellow citizens, Clouds and darkness 
are round about him ! His pavilion is dark water and thick 
clouds of the skies; Justice and judgment are the establishment 
of his throne I Mercy and truth shall go before his face. 
Fellow citizens, God reigns, and the government at Washing- 
ton still lives ! " The orator had quieted the angry crowd, and 
made them think of God and his Providence over the nation. 
" Who is he ? " was the cry. " General Garfield, of Ohio," 
came the answer. Here was the faith of the man in the people, 
and in God. 

Another beautiful characteristic of the man is seen in his 
love of home, and of wife, and of mother. Nothing more 
affecting than the thought of his home that da}^ in March when 
an exultant party led him with all the pomp of ceremony into 
the chair of state. His thoughts seem to speed back over miles 
of country to that old mother in the village of Mentor. Noth- 
ing more affecting than his thoughts of wife and children in the 
day of his trial when the bullet of the assassin drew forth his 
life-blood. We might speak also of his spirit of forgiveness 
towards the South, which seemed to place him far in advance 
of his party. " I have a hope," said he, " that the day will come 
when the swords of the North and the South will be crossed 
over the doorways of our children. I have a hope that the 
high qualities brought out in the conflict will be the common 
heritage of the whole nation." These are lessons which Garfield 
bequeaths to his country. Through the gloom that pervades 
the nation at the loss of such a man, in the very day of his 
usefulness, there is heard the same voice that quieted the angry 
passions of sixteen years ago. " God reigns, and the govern- 
ment at Washington still lives." The American people have 
reason to be proud of their conduct in this moment of grief, 
they have reason to rejoice that though great men die " the 



40 

republic still lives." And, as when Lincoln fell, his legal suc- 
cessor assumed control of state, without a jar or a break, so 
Garfield's legal successor accedes to power. While a sympa- 
thizing people bend low over the grave of their martyred Pres- 
ident, loyalty to republican institutions bids them yield obedi- 
ence to his lawful successor. In other countries across the 
water the deed of July, consummated Sept. 19th, would 
probably have resulted in bloodshed or revolution. This is a 
day of sadness. " Mourn then ye children, for a great leader 
has fallen in Israel." The fortitude and patience of the sufferer, 
arising from a strong faith in God, have consoled the people 
during the anxious days of his lingering death. His struggle 
is over. His sufferings in life are ended ; so are his triumphs. 
He battled for his convictions ; his mistakes have been forgotten 
in his last battle with death. Many of us differed from him in 
religion ; many of us differed from him more strongly in poli- 
tics ; but it seems as if the cruel blow that brought him to his 
untimely grave has made men forget the politician, and see 
only the man, or better still the President of the nation. 
Around his grave, to-day, all classes unite ; creed and party are 
forgotten, men recognize that a good man has gone from among 
them. We mingle our tribute with that of our country. We 
mourn to-day the nation's loss. We feel that when future years 
tell the history of America, side by side with the noblest and 
the best sons of America, James A. Garfield, the second martyr 
President, will hold a cherished place. Dear will his memory 
be for the recollection of his noble persistency of purpose ; dear 
for the noble traits of forgiveness, manliness, love of home; and 
dearer, perhaps, still, for the qualities developed during the 
days of his agony, the Christian faith, the manly courage, the 
tender affection. Marble and stone may commemorate the 
deeds of heroes, but, within the heart of every true American, 
upon fleshly tablets, will be inscribed the name of Garfield, never 
to be effaced nor forgotten as long as men love true worth. 



IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



TN accordance with a proclamation by His Honor Mayor 
-*• Kelly, memorial exercises were held in all the public 
schools of the city, on Monday morning, September 26th. 
At a meeting of the Teachers, on Saturday afternoon, Septem- 
ber 24th, the Superintendent set forth the object and the man- 
ner of the observances, as follows : 

SUPT. MARBLE'S ADDRESS. 

" The President of the United States appoints Monday next 
'to be observed throughout the United States as a day of humil- 
iation and mourning.' The Governor asks the people of the 
Commonwealth ' to make it a sacred day and to keep it accord- 
ingly. A day of public consecration to Almighty God ; of 
mourning for the great dead ; of sympathy with his widow, his 
children, and his aged mother; 3'et also of gratitude for his 
noble life, and of inspiration, springing from his example, for 
the manhood of the future.' 

" In order the better to enforce these lessons, and to take the 
most appropriate notice of the national loss, the Mayor has 
ordered that the ordinary exercises of the schools be suspended ; 
that the forenoon of Monday be devoted to memorial exercises ; 
and that the schools be closed for the afternoon, when the 
churches will probably hold religious services at the time of the 
solemn ceremonies at Cleveland. This mode of observing the 
day is most heartily approved by many citizens who have 
expressed their views, and I shall be surprised if all, both pupils 
and teachers, do not enter heartily into the observance. . . . 
In what way, I wish to ask, can the ten thousand school child- 
ren so well spend the forenoon, as, with their teachers and in 
the presence of a common sorrow, to study the life, character. 



42 

and example of the illustrious dead, and to learn the lessons of 
fidelity, industry, courage and fortitude, which that example 
teaches ? In what other or more appropriate way can they and 
we observe the requests contained in the proclamations of the 
President and the Governor ? It is by impressing, in an appropri- 
ate way, the minds of these children, and not by tears alone, 
shed either in solitude or in public, that we can best show our 
regard for the beloved Garfield. As a teacher, he would prefer 
such a course, there is no doubt. And no prayers or religious 
service, it seems to me, will be more acceptable than the emo- 
tions of reverence, contrition and affection which the contem- 
plation of the public calamity and its heroic victim will call 
forth from the children in the scene of their daily work. . . . 
" In a school of this city, the other day, a boy about ten years 
old was reading the account of little Mollie Garfield's parting 
with her father. Tears of sympathy were on every cheek, for 
the little girl whom not one of those children had seen. Those 
tears betokened warm hearts that could feel the sorrows of 
others. They were precious tears. How easy and how apj^ropri- 
ate it is for us, who have the privilege of instructing and guiding 
these little ones, to show them that many a noble father has 
left his precious children, and that there are Mollie Garfields, 
in every school, who need their love and sympathy. Harry, the 
boy eighteen years old, started in the early morning from 
Williams College alone, with a satchel in his hand, and a sad 
heart, to look on the face of his dead father in New Jersey," and 
go with the body to its last resting-place. In every school 
there is some boy or girl who has had a similar trial — not less 
hard to bear because the family was not in a high station. For 
that family all is now dark : but the sun will shine at length 
for them as it does for others ; and INIollie Garfield and Harry 
may j-et be happy. Such considerations as these, judiciously 
suggested, now that the time is ripe, may soften the grief of 
many a child when bereavement shall visit him, and enable him 
to bear it with equanimity, as the late President did. That 
solemn midnight bell which sent the sad intelligence to every 
house in the city, that after all his heroic struggle for life the 
President was dead — the same solemn sound recalled to every 



43 

one the loss of some one near and dear ; children of their 
parents; brothers and sisters of brothers or sisters ; mothers 
and fathers of little ones gone beyond their care. The Presi- 
dent's death touches us because he was a man, more than 
because he was President ; and the sympathy with his family 
is universal because every one has had a similar sorrow. 

" And then there are the contrasts which the murder of the 
President suggests. To him and his family all our hearts 
warm. What shall be said of the wretched creature who is 
the cause of all this woe ? For one, I wish that his name and 
his memor}' might never more be known among men. But this is 
no time for revengeful or vindictive feelings towards the insig- 
nificant being who could do so great a crime. Let us leave 
him to the course of his country's laws, to his conscience, and 
to his God. 

" But that man was once an innocent boy, to whom the 
thought of such a crime was terrible. And the President was 
also an innocent boy. What has made the diiference in the 
lives of the two men ? There is n't a boy in school who 
doesn't know to which of these ends a given course of conduct 
leads. Here is a good chance for an object lesson in morals. 

" There is a special reason why the late President should be 
dear to us here assembled. He was a school master himself. 
Every noble trait seen in his character may have been stimulated 
in its development by the duties of that calling ; at any rate, 
those noble traits of character ought to be an example for each 
of us, to be transmitted to the children in our care as a herit- 
age. The day appointed gives an opportunity to imbue the 
children with the heroic spirit of Garfield, just as the youthful 
warriors in ancient times would dip their spears in the blood of 
the heroes that were slain, in order to stimulate their courage. 

*' If fidelity to duty, courage in war. fortitude in suffering, 
and all the manly virtues so conspicuous in James A. Garfield 
for the past two months, can, by this sad event, be imbibed by 
the children of the land, and be admired anew by their parents, 
then the sorrow and the pain will not have been in vain, and 
the great dead will be stronger in his death than in his life. It 
is to this end that the memorial exercises will take place in the 
schools. The good can never die — they are immortal even here. 



44 



" ' Since good, though only thought, has life and breath, 

— God's life can always be redeemed from death — 

And evil in its nature is decay, 

And any hour may drive it all away, 

The hopes that, lost in some far distance, seem, 

May be the truer life, and this the dream.'" 



As a sample of the exercises in the Grammar Schools, the 
following programme of one of them is given : 

I. Selections from the Scriptures. 

II. The Lord's Prayer. 

III. Hymn. 

IV. Reading. " General Garfield's Boyhood." 

From New York Tribune, July 2, 1880. 

V. " President Garfield." 

VI. " Mr. Garfield's Record." 

VII. Singing. "America." 

VIII. " To Mrs. Garfield." 

IX. " Sad Interview with his Daughter." 

X. " Scenes at the Death Bed of Garfield." 

XI. " The Funeral." 

XII. " My Captain." 

XIII. "King John." Act IV. Scene 3. 

XIV. Singing. 

XV. " Letters of Garfield." 
XVI. " God Grant him Peace." 
XVII. Singing. 
XVIII. Accounts by children. 
XIX. Decoration, by children. [This consisted of a pra- 
cession in front of the desk, where each child deposited a small 
bouquet in front of the draped picture of Garfield.] 
XX. " Chester A. Arthur." 



In the Primary Schools there were exercises similar in char- 
acter : 

The school was opened and closed with the Lord's Prayer. 

The teacher then related such anecdotes from the life of Gar- 
field as would interest and instruct the children. A hymn suit- 



45 

able to the occasion was sung to the tune of America. The 
children were then asked to relate anything they had learned 
of the late president, and to write sentences from memory. 

Pictures from Harpers' Weekly, besides the large picture 
of Garfield which was in the room, were also shown the children. 



In the High School the pupils were assembled in the Hall, 
and the exercises were begun by appropriate remarks by the 
Principal, Mr. Alfred S. Roe. Anthems and hymns were sung 
by the pupils ; a quartette, Mr. and Mrs. Seth Richards, Mr. 
Oliver C. Hutchins, and Miss Gertrude J. Hutchins, sang selec- 
tions suited to the occasion. Hon. W. W. Rice addressed the 
school on the character, the manhood, and the personal influ- 
ence of Garfield, with whom he had long been associated in 
Congress. Rev. J. F. Lovering pointed out the useful lessons 
from the nation's calamity. Brief remarks were also made 
by his Honor Mayor Kelley, and by the Superintendent of 
schools. 



About eight thousand school children personally took part in 
the memorial exercises. They will never forget the occasion. 
It will dwell in their memory, and be recounted to children's 
children. 



FACTS IN CONCLUSION. 



OF the services of Sunday, the Spy of Monday, 2()th, says : '• It is doubtful 
if there was ever so large an attendance at the local churches as on yes- 
terday, and with one accord the voice of the pulpit was lifted in praise of 
President Garfield and the acts which endeared him to the nation." 

Throughout the city emblems of mourning appeared on the houses and 
places of business of our citizens. The general observance of Monday, the 
day of the President's funeral, is thus described b}' the Gazette of Tuesday, 
27th : " Yesterday, the day of President Garfield's funeral at Cleveland, 
Ohio, was more generally observed in this city than any previous event of its 
character. All classes of business were suspended, and all classes of people 
joined in mourning the fate of the dead President. The few lines of business 
upon which food depends were open for an hour or two in the morning, but 
by ten o'clock the streets had almost a Sabbath stillness. There was an 
added profusion to the display of mourning emblems, and a large portion of 
the people who thronged the streets wore mourning badges. Guns were 
fired at half-hour intervals from sunrise to sunset, by Battery B. M. V. M., 
Capt. Allen, at Salem Square, and during the hours devoted to the funeral 
ceremonies, the fire-alarm bells tolled in half-minute strokes. 

At the meeting of the City Council which ordered the preparation of the 
present memorial, an order was adopted authorizing the Mayor to invite 
Hon. George F. Hoar to deliver a Eulogj^ on James A. Garfield, before the 
City Council at some time to be hereafter fixed upon. Reference has already 
been made to the general features of full and impressive observance of the 
event by the numerous church congregations of Worcester. In many of these 
churches there were Memorial exercises on Monday, among which, from their 
special features, are to be noted the following : 

REV. MR. ATWATER'S DISCOURSE. 

At the Church of Christ, on Thomas Street, which is of the denomination 
known as "The Disciples of Christ," to which President Garfield belonged, 
the morning service on Sunday was in memoriam, and there was also a me- 
morial service in the church on Monday. The entrance to the church was 
draped with mourning emblems, and there were draping.s, and a portrait of 
the President over the pulpit. On Sunday the preacher of the memorial ser- 
mon was Rev. J. M. Atwater, formerly of the city of Cleveland, a pupil 
of President Garfield, when he was president of Hiram College in Ohio ; a 
personal friend through life, knowing Mr. Garfield intimately. 

Rev. Mr. Atwater took for his text the words : "Except a corn of wheat 
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth 



47 

imich fruit;" John xii, 24. He applied the words of the text, in a liiiman 
and limited sense, to the dead President. In lookinir for consolation in this 
event he was met at every turn by the evidences that the people to-day 
mourn a great national loss. There was a very bitter sense of a great and 
terrible waste of power and gifts which were priceless, and infinitely pre- 
cious. The speaker referred at length to his personal memories of the dead 
President at Hiram College, and gave Mr. Garfield credit for a teaching 
power he had never seen equalled in any other man. lie described Mr. Gar- 
field as he appeared at the re-unlon of Hiram College, just after the 
nomination to the Presidency. He possessed a magnificent physical man- 
hood, a mental power which could arouse and enthuse pupils under his train- 
ing, and wonderfully increase their value as men and women in the world. 

Hi heart and soul he was as rich as in mental and physical endowments. 
He was one who listened to and learned of all around him, and won sym- 
pathy and affection from every one. In the race and clutching for office, he 
presented a spectacle never before seen in this country. It is quite common 
to see many men striving for one office ; here were four offices striving for 
one man! The people of his own district wanted him in Congress, and 
would take no one else as long as he would serve them; Jiad he continued in 
the House, the Speakership awaited him as soon as the Kepublicans came 
into power. His State had already elected him as a Senator when he was 
nominated for President, and elected before he could act as Senator. To 
these four honors has been added a fifth, and a higher than all ; he is the 
Nation's Martyr. 

In seeking for the consolations of this sad event the speaker declared that 
in God's economy there is never any waste. God never permits a criminal 
to strike a blow, but that blow can be turned to some good purpose. By his 
sufferings and death, President Garfield rules the nation to-day as he never 
could have ruled it had he lived. He shall bring great blessings to the 
nation by his martyrdom. He has been magnified, intensified, glorified and 
mvJtipUed hy his snflering. In the ploughed field of American hearts, 
ploughed by sorrow, shall spring up a rich harvest from the seed that has 
been planted. He was loved as no other man has ever been loved in this 
country, and in the great future his infiuence will be greater than that of 
Washington or Lincoln. 

MEMORIAL EXERCISES AT ALL SAINTS CHURCH. 

At All Saints Church, the St. George Society, an Association of English 
residents of Worcester, attended in a body at 11 a. .m., on Monday. 

Immediately after the reading of the proclamation, and before the prayers, 
the Rector said : 

KEV. DR. HUNTINGTON'S ADDRESS. 

In compliance with the wishes of the Chief Magistrate thus forraallj' ex- 
pressed, we are assembled this morning, fellow Christians, in God's house of 
prayer. Words of eulogy in honor of the illustrious dead have been already 
spoken in this place. Another duty awaits us now. We are here not for 



48 

purposes of oratory and panegyric, but simply to mourn and pray; to mourn 
for this disaster tliat has befalleu our country, to mourn for bim whom first 
we learu to liouor aud then learned to love ; to mourn for the natural sin of 
recklessness tliat has made so great a personal sin possible ; and to pray that 
He who is the Sovereign Commander of all the world, will, of His goodness, 
turn our hearts unto Himself. 

Yes, we are here for a further purpose, also. We are here to give expres- 
sion to our sympathy, which, but for such an opportunity of utterance as 
religious worship offers, would seem to itself choked and paralyzed. We 
would tell out our sympathy for her whose widowhood the nation counts as 
its own, whose fatherless children this one stroke of death has constituted a 
nation's wards. Aud we would sympathize also with each other as fellow 
countrymen, and as members of that larger family which is coterminous 
with the race. 

Not the least impressive among the many signal lessons taught us by this 
event has been the proof afforded to even the most reluctant eyes, of the ever 
strengthening character of the bond wherewith God, the Father of all the 
families of the earth, is knitting the scattered kindreds of His children into 
unity. 

Of all the tributes of foreign sympathy that have reached our shores, none 
have more deeply touched the national heart than those that have come to us 
from our old home across the sea. Her Majesty the Queen has seeu many 
great men rise aud fall duriug her long occupancy of the throne, — Wellington 
and Havelock, Clyde and Lawrence, Peel aud Beaconsfleld ; they are all goue ; 
but never has she done a memorial act more graceful or one more cordially 
appreciated than when she laid her wreath of English roses on the coffin of 
Garfield dead. 

The Most Revereud the Primate of all England, has spokeu for the Church 
over which he so worthily presides, aud a thousand thousand voices all over 
the realm liave told us how the people feel. We send them greeting in return, 
and I am thankful for the opportunity to say in the presence of a society 
which represents the English portion of our Worcester population, how 
warm that greeting is. May we not see, friends and neighbors all, may we 
not see in this surprising, almost startliug demonstration of foreign sympa- 
thy, the beginning of a glorious consummatiou not so very far away; may 
we not catch, at least, a faint fore-gleam of the day predicted in his youth by 
him who is now the laureate of Euglaud, and whom of all the poets our late 
President is said best to have loved ; may we not catch, I say, a fore-gleam of 
k that bright day 

" When the war-drums throb no longer, and the battle-flaga are furled, 
In the parliament of man, the federation af the world." 



